The interior minister said Wednesday that the leaders of two large Russian oil companies, including a subsidiary of the U.S. Marathon Oil Corp., were detained on suspicion of embezzling more than 1.5 billion rubles (US$54 million, ¤41 million) in state funds, news agencies reported. The leaders of the Khanty-Mansiisk oil company, a unit of Houston-based Marathon, and Nazym Oil and Gas Exploration Company were taken into custody, Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev was quoted as saying by the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies. The agencies didn't provide the names of the officials, but according to the companies' Web sites, they are brothers Alexander and Nikolai Pershin. No one in either company was available for comment. Nurgaliyev also said that an investigation was under way into allegations that the leadership of the Khanty-Mansiisk autonomous region, about 2,500 kilometers (1,560 miles) east of Moscow, had caused half a billion rubles (US$17.8 million, ¤13.7 million) worth of economic damage to the state by selling 461 oil wells at discounted prices, Interfax reported. He said his ministry should make it a priority this year to strip organized criminal groups of "the opportunity to control major sectors of the economy, including the fuel and energy sector, considerable budget assets and export operations," Interfax reported.
